


Fire Crotch and the Friend Zone Virgins

by Annie Christ (SmokedSalmon)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - 2000s, Band Fic, High School, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Male Bonding, Misogyny, Recreational Drug Use, Religious Conflict
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:25:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2128401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmokedSalmon/pseuds/Annie%20Christ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No way. I wear babies for condoms and carve the beast's sign into the back of my neck all while confessing sometimes the Bible gives me nocturnal emissions. I, Axel, have given them every reason to believe I'm evil."</p><p>Before the sickness, before the band, before Roxas vanished; Axel Vasquez believed he was standing on an untouchable pedestal in the center of a Kentuckian hellhole. Submerged in the Louisville hardcore scene throughout the ass end of the 2000s where queer intolerance was at its imploding point, everyone and their mother was trying to run away from southern stultification and the stars never seemed to align quite right, Axel promised himself he would never come home once he left for NYU. That is, until he found a reason, until he realized a teenage boy can't always be right, and until Axel discovered that sometimes, to make life work, you have to perform the greatest balancing act of all time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. But Before We Begin

"Your body's a _temple_."

Fourteen is a beautiful age. Actually, if you want me to be perfectly honest, that couldn't be further from the truth. There's hardly anything to romanticize about the point in your life when you realize there's something to be angry about. Curdling pimples, body odor like an onion bleach martini (shaken, not stirred), the infallible truth there's nothing you can do about the boner in fourth period English, secondhand embarrassment adults endure when you voice new, uninformed opinions, pop punk; you know, the meat of juvenile brilliance everyone seems to forget transcends all generations and immediately stops sympathizing with as soon as they hit the legal mark. I'm going to be honest, it's more than likely a coping mechanism on the grown ups' part. Trauma turned repressed memories turned loathing, if you will. But you can't _really_ blame them, can you? There's nothing glamorous about the insuppressible intestinal fortitude of teen angst.

"And this body's going to fuse its fibers right on back together when it's all said and done." My gaze flitted to my left only to redirect to the mirror that was an inch away from the tip of my greasy nose. Blackheads had turned my pores into constellations I dug out before every shower with morbid satisfaction. "Stop pouting at me like that. I hate it when you do that. You're acting like I'm doing something _bad_. This _isn't bad_."

Roxas, a fellow classmate and childhood best friend, was pressing his boney bicep against the bathroom doorframe and feeding me a look that could've simultaneously given me leukemia and a hemorrhoid-inducing guilt complex. Obviously, he didn't agree with what I'd just said. Not that I was _surprised_ , but his inability to deal with anything I did was irritating at best. He was a thirteen-year-old boy with a silent treatment that made Mother Theresa's look like child's play, and he had the cherub features to match. Roxas was a regular leader of the Aryan race built on the kind of foundation that made my Spanish roots look like an unapologetically blasé mud brick house, but he was kind and helped scrub the red dye off my scalp during our Anarchist Sleepovers. The guy was a real peach, and bruised just as easily.

"Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost _which is_ in you—"

"-which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" I dipped into the Solo cup full of ice and dug out another cube that I held to my earlobe. "Thanks, King James, but I know Corinthians, too. You're not going to change my mind, okay? So, chill out for a second and be _supportive_."

"Supportive of your _self-mutilation_?" Roxas snatched up a taper and stared at the piece of black plastic as if it were an iron maiden. His repulsion was almost endearing, if only because it was so genuine. "You're not even doing it right. I researched it. You're _not_ doing it _right_. This taper is too big." His chest puffed up and he tossed it down as if it'd scalded his fingers. "You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ."

"Romans— _awesome_. Who sits beside you during Sunday school again? Didn't we just get out of Bible camp? What was that band you loved again that they had show up near the end? Bibletallica or something?"

Roxas wasn't amused, but I was. "What if you get an infection?"

"Then you tug it out and try again? _Relax_."

Beside me sat a bottle of Vitamin E oil, which I began coating the obviously too large taper in. Whether or not I was stretching stupidly hardly registered because I was trying to make a _point_. Whatever that point was I've entirely lost to my chasm of 'actual problems,' but it must've been important to me at the time since I was risking sepsis. The tip of the taper settled against my numbed skin, and I began pushing it through my microscopically pierced ear with a scrunched expression, tearing skin and breathing hard with flared nostrils. Porous acrylic slowly forced its way through my lobe like sloppy anal sex bent on the idea that only lubrication was enough to do the job right, and my molars milled together.

"I'm going to vomit," Roxas said, watching in horror. "I'm going to tell your mom, Axel. I have her number, and she'll come home."

"Why are you even _here_?" My ear flooded with heat and the pulsations of my heartbeat played along my frontal lobe like the Chromatic Scale. "Did you really come over just to rub it in my face how right you _always_ are? One is in. It's sort of done, alright? Can't go back now!"

"You're being a jerk." He was right, but I didn't see it that way, which was why I immediately started stretching the other ear. "I'm just trying to help you. This is so stupid and trendy. You're being really stupid."

Only when the second taper was in and settled did I exhale with a low whistle and stare at my reflection as if I had a reason to be impressed with myself. Roxas' face was a cherry tomato when I reached to my side for the bottle of Ibuprofen and dry swallowed six pills. The ache was enough to make me feel lightheaded, but I still triumphantly turned to him and raised my palms toward the ceiling, which was the pinnacle of ' _so what_?'

He eyed me with such disdain. "My dad isn't going to let us hang out anymore after this. We can't be friends anymore, Axel."

" _Cool -_ you're going to listen to Daddy then? Well, don't let the door hit you where the Good Lord split ya on your way out, alright?"

Betrayal ate up Roxas' originally angry expression, and without so much as a real defense, he reached down for his black Herschel Supply Co. backpack with the gold zippers and threw it over his shoulder. Dirty Nikes scraped across the hallway flooring as he took that final walk toward my front door. At the time, I saw it as him voluntarily walking the plank and into the oceanic mass that was absolute submission to his parental, but the reality was I'd pushed him into the shark's feast without blinking.

"I'll pray for you."

"Please _don't_."

When the door slammed behind him, a soft silence dispersed through the house, and I refused to acknowledge how suddenly lonesome I was. In my mind, everything was sunny, which was why I flopped down onto the leather couch in the living room with a disenchanted expression. Roxas was supposed to be a nonissue, another notch in the platonic bedpost where someday I might look back and surprise myself to remember we were once best friends. We were meant to forget about one another and roll through the continuum of our existences oblivious to what we'd been.

That really was wishful thinking.


	2. Like-- Pemberley, though?

I have a lot of regrets in life, but if there's one era of existence I wish I could eradicate from the surface of my memory, it's my existence as a high school aged boy. While I understand there's some kind of importance behind the retrospective approach to being young, dumb and seemingly invincible I still haven't taken the time to digest the groundwork of my senior year, only because that means accepting it as my foundation. Denial is a toasty blanket that swaddles us like infants still smelling of afterbirth, but that doesn't mean it's safe or even utilitarian in the grand scheme of Life. Maybe that's why I've decided to indulge in all the hindsight I've made accessible to myself, but the real problem with self-evaluation is knowing where to start. Pivotal points are the climax and not the beginning. There's a gestation period that leads up to the Big Bang when we realize how we've wronged or been wronged or maybe even a little bit of both because life isn't as black and white as we like to make believe.

A week before Fall Break circa 2010 sets the tone for all the things I've done. Candidly seated at one of my public school's cafeteria tables with the straight back chairs meant to promote proper posture, a deafening buzz encircled me while I sat with my fingers hooked in a stretched ear that had the circumference of a Coke can. I was alone, but only because my friends didn't come in until the halfway point of my lunch cycle, and I wasn't paying attention. Had I been paying attention, I would've noticed the sophomore girl striding toward me in stained Ugg boots and the kind of shorts she'd only managed to get away with because she used her free period to enchant the office staff. We were in the heart of the Republican Underbelly where fucking your own wife was scandalous but teen pregnancy was at an all time high. My high school had a nursery down the hallway but still taught abstinence.

"You slept with me!"

I'd been flipping through an AP English textbook when a set of small hands slammed onto the acrylic tabletop in front of me. The smack rang through the room, but I didn't look up even though that single gesture had gained us an audience readying themselves to comply with the cue cards of 'oooos' and 'ahhhs.' My cheek was settled in a propped up palm, and I continued attempting to concentrate on the reading I'd forgotten to do the night before.

"No," I said, but only because I genuinely didn't recognize her voice. Then I glanced up. _Wait._ "No?"

"Everyone saw us go into that room together, Axel." This was punctuated by her blowing a bubble with her gum, and only when she rolled the wad of Double Bubble beneath her tongue did it dawn on me she might be right. My blood turned to slush. "Don't even _try_ to lie about it. I heard you telling everyone it didn't happen."

"Are you..." My eyes appraisingly took in her stomach which was hidden by a hooded sweatshirt. Cold sweats that were only synonymous with IBS hit me like a freight train. "Are you pregnant or something?"

She stepped back as if I'd insulted her. "God! No, you asshole. If I was pregnant, then I'd be at my grandparents' house right now."

Relief washed over me like a Born-again Virgin's baptism. High school babies were as common place as dog shit in a yard but hardly something you could hose off and forget about. The last thing I wanted was an infant ruining my life with child support and Trevi fountains of formula diarrhea. After taking a couple seconds to work my jaw, I leaned forward and murmured for the sake of us both. She was really grossing out my standard for social cues. "Then _why_ does it matter?"

"You _used_ me! Acknowledge it!"

"Okay, wait, wait - _you_..." I raised my free hand to split my fingers into a downward V formation before walking them toward her. "...spread _your_ legs for _me_. Let's not get confused here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it take two to make the beast with two backs? Can we just agree we used one another and go on with our lives? I mean, it must've been pretty _good_ if you're pissed off enough to hear I'm denying it. Like, what do you even want me to do? Marry you? I'm sitting here trying to remember your fucking name, and for the life of me I just can't seem to -"

 _She slapped me_. Before I could reach up to defend my head the girl fucking slapped me so hard my nervous system temporarily shut off, and I genuinely thought I'd gone deaf right then and there. Numbness shot through the side of my face only to dissipate into tingling fire, and I had to exhale a hard coughing laugh of disbelief solely to cope with her audacity. This wasn't new for me—the being slapped by girls thing—and I wasn't under any delusions to be ignorant as to why that was. Even so, girls and their sensitivities were really wearing me thin. None of them could live a day without making shit _complicated_ , and I was really starting to question the worth of dealing with them.

Without missing a beat - I salivated, inhaled hard enough to lift my chest and then spat at her face with an airy whistle. The spit might've landed in more her hair than on her face, but her shocked disgust was satisfying. A hush drowned out the hustle of the school cafeteria, and I stared at her with an accusing glower. Thanks to me spitting, she was going to look like the victim, and I was going to be the class misogynist. Not only that, but it didn't help this wasn't my first episode. I was waiting for someone to flee the table of freewill and abandonment of social construction. Someone would make a beeline to the school counselor's office where I'd be reported for assaulting another female, and when I got home, my mom would be waiting with a metal spoon and laundry list of chores. Really, I got a lot of flak for having a healthy libido and no interest in creating emotional ties with my conquests. My brain was not wire to understand why other people couldn't understand the Terms and Conditions of casual sex.

"Fuck you," she snapped, reaching up to wipe the spit from her hair.

I really couldn't resist. "Seems like that already happened, right?"

The girl, whose name I still can't recall without the possibility of mixing it up with someone else's, pushed away from the table with insecurely hunched shoulders and vanished as quickly as she'd come. If she hadn't smacked me hard enough to leave a bruise, then I might've considered her attractive if not workably tacky. The real problem in finding her attractive had also been the fact she was a sophomore to my senior. Dating people my own age was hard enough, so the thought of having an _actual_ high school relationship was daunting to even consider.

After a couple of looks from me, the cafeteria tried to return to normal even though the glances and hushed conversations were suddenly much louder. My school had always been a black and white film prostituting itself for Technicolor and natural dialogue. The world liked to underpay its writers more so than not, but after so many existences, I suppose finding fresh material was a joke. It was why people ate up the Spanish Novella that was my life. There was literally nothing else for them to pay attention to when the student population didn't exceed six hundred.

"I'm impressed." One of my closest friends and part-time adversaries wrenched back a chair and plopped down across from me with a dramatic sigh. His lunchbox collided with the table, and I already knew what was going to come out of the pouch; an orange, a half-consumed bag of pretzels, two Capri Suns and _maybe_ a protein bar. "That's twice this month and it's only the tenth. Are we trying to get expelled this year?"

"Where's the rest of the God Squad? I don't see you running Han Solo that much anymore."

His flinty eyes shifted. "Saving souls? Plotting your inevitable crucifixion? Do you know how nerve-wracking it is anytime they pick up a nail?"

Riku, the boy before me, was bogus when it came to his doctrine, but his ability to acknowledge his artificial way of life was what made me like him. He did it to benefit himself, something common among the kids in my high school. It made him the logical one out of the two of us. Had I been smart, I'd have done the same thing in order to get ahead, but I hadn't, and the propaganda I avoided sometimes didn't feel avoided at all because of that. I wasn't dodging bullets. I was running at them shirtless like some kind of martyr.

"They're good at the saving thing." I picked at my forgotten pizza's toppings, wondering how much soy-filler was in the pepperoni. "They do it in style, too. In those alternative-looking shirts that are totally _suh-weet_."

" _Hey now_." He pointed at the aforementioned religious shirt he was wearing. "I design those."

"They're awesome; a real testament to your graphic design ingenuity." I pushed my slice of pizza aside even more and reached for his orange, but he slammed a fist on my hand and threw me the protein bar.

A stare off ensued and Riku sat there contemplating for a moment. Suddenly, he reluctantly handed me the orange as if I'd persuaded him to do something _dirty_. "I don't know many guys with your stature who are healthy. Go to a doctor. He'll tell you you're under weight. You probably have hepatitis or something, so don't come crying to me when your dick falls off and you're fishing it out of some urinal."

"This body gets way more pussy than you can even begin to _conceive_."

He violently shoved a straw into a Capri Sun. The act seemed like a subconscious representation of his sexual frustration. "I'm practicing abstinence because you know what I don't want? Your fucking hepatitis."

"I'm proud of you." I was digging my thumbnail into the citrus peel. " _Real_ proud, Riku. I'm sure Sora, Roxas and Kairi are even prouder."

"And speak of the devils, my clairvoyant pal."

Without apology, the God Squad manifested in the doorway in all the glitz and bang one could spirit gum to a drag queen's skin. Carrying their eco-friendly lunch boxes made of organic fibers and radiating self-confidence that could have made Adolf Hitler look like a prepubescent girl, it was hard _not_ to stare, whether out of disgust or admiration. Each one of them possessed a sense of immense superiority that complimented the overpriced pieces of vegan-friendly clothing they draped over their God-manufactured bodies. Undeniably, they were beautiful humanoids void of blood and the souls they tried to save. Undeniably, they were hypocritical, bottom-feeding scum that sucked logic from minds the same way Riku sucked his artificially flavored juice pouches dry.

"Are they staring?" Riku asked.

His back was to the table they'd sat at, and I kept brushing my fingers through my hair over and over again as if seeming casual when we were sitting there redhanded in one another's company. "I'm avoiding eye contact."

"I bet they're staring."

When I mention the God Squad I'm referring to the local Baptist church's youth group whose initiation process theoretically consists of drinking from the Goblet of Blood. I don't mean the grape juice with the wafers kind of Goblet of Blood either. I'm talking about the legitimate Evil Dead Claymation gore, and the fact that there hadn't been private investigations for cult activity had baffled me for years; that is, until I came to terms with how the authorities were members of the church, every trendy little hub in town was ran by some member, and not single teacher didn't parade around the pews every Sunday, of course. The place was a pillar for the town's existence, and while children should never have too much power, the youth group controlled everything when it came to school and juvenile community activities. One couldn't step into a classroom without hearing a member's name pop from someone's mouth in admiration, and it was as if the community orbited around their existences like they offered wisdom directly from the Messiah. They were the sun we encircled like irrelevant planets constructed by Mother Nature's sense of humor. It was like they were the second coming of Christ when really their parents were just loaded white people, exemplifying Mitt Romney and faithful viewers of Fox News.

"Roxas asked us to pray for you." Riku leaned in closer to me, whispering. That single sentence crisped my ass, but there wasn't much I could do about it. "In case you didn't know - you're an _atheist_."

I considered how old we all acted. "Titillating shit, man."

"I wasn't sure if you knew or not."

Both of my hands were covered in sticky citrus oil. "I bet they think you're trying to convert me again. Your orange is a peace offering. I am your lamb. God was not a total asshole in the New Testament. All is forgiven."

"Roxas' wet dream is for you to come back to the congregation."

"No way. I wear babies for condoms and carve the beast's sign into the back of my neck all while confessing sometimes the Bible gives me nocturnal emissions. I, Axel, have given them every reason to believe I'm evil."

Riku reached out for an orange wedge. "That was heavy handed even for you."

"Go back to your table. Tell them how you made me think about my failings as a human being." I clicked my tongue. "Might as well make them believe you're making progress."

Riku rolled his eyes until only the whites were visible. I could have sworn I heard him tell me to suck his dick through a finalizing sigh, but I continued obliviously eating his orange, even muttering a 'thanks.' I had three more classes to go before Autumn Break freed me from the educational pits. It was a time when I should've been filled with nostalgia, maybe even making plans with some friends to drink stolen beer and roast marshmallows down by the lake. After all, this was going to be the last Fall Break of my high school career, but all I could concentrate on was how many more days were left until freedom. I'd never meshed well with the day to day routine of public education, and while I tried to tell myself it wasn't because I was stupid, there were still some days where my 4.0 GPA felt like empty drivel. Good grades weren't that hard when you figured out the right system to make them happen.

My brain was already oatmeal when I walked into Advanced Placement English. There were only so many times I could give a shit about the depth and significance of _Pride and Prejudice,_ especially when I'd read it for shits and giggles only two months before studying it. We'd been thumbing through that very book for almost the entire grading period, and I was over it. Studying the novel had earned its own inhumane quality that made the first screening of the Exorcism seem tame. Long ago Mr. Darcy had finished me off with a brutal fatality, and I was bleeding out in the name of literature only significant to its own time period. It wasn't worth my parents' tax dollars, and I was suffering because someone had engrained the importance of the Classics into Kentucky's curriculum.

Throughout that longwinded internal death, I'd been blearily staring out the window and counting the falling leaves. That was why, when Demyx leaned forward from behind me and decided to breathe words alluding to fucking my stretched ears onto the back of my neck, I nearly elbowed him in the face. He caught my arm.

"Your dick isn't even thick enough to fit in these."

He feigned preoccupation with his notes as he let me go. "I'm _wounded_."

Demyx was the kind that made me, my inch and half stretched ears and other petty modifications look like kindergarten work, but it wasn't his appearance that made him so above me. He was the only male on our school's pom squad and was charismatic enough not to be shoved into a trunk full of snapping turtles. As weird as he was with his highlighted undercut that was homage to Lance Bass and multi-colored V-necks that exposed his tanned, waxed chest, I still found him tolerable. On some days, I genuinely liked him. Demyx was a savvy son of a bitch when it came to anything pertaining to how the people worked, could call bullshit and avoided our hometown as much as I did. His mainstay was Lexington, but sometimes we ran into one another in Louisville only because it was a small world.

"What're your plans tonight?" He asked before popping a piece of gum into his mouth, offering me a stick of Juicy Fruit. After being smacked upside the head by a gum chomping princess, it was the last thing I wanted. "We should head out of town. One of my boys got his hands on some kush, and I don't want to be here tonight knowing it's going to waste on someone's lesser lungs."

My lips curled back into a lockjaw smile. "I have dinner with Roxas' dad tonight."

"Do what _I_ did." Demyx casually tugged at one of my stainless steel tunnels and I shrugged him off. "Tell them you like boys. You'll be pulled aside and asked to never return to the youth group and _in private_. It's practically mess free except for all the backstabbing whispers and condemning to hell, but in the end you're the one who's getting laid, and that's how you know you've won."

"But I don't like boys." This was a habitual phrase every male bodied individual had been trained to recite from the moment sexual attraction became an issue in his life. No, even before that. It was engrained in the way fathers tensed up whenever little girls jokingly painted their male friends' toes, how picking up a Barbie fried onlookers' circuits and even in the sexualization of babies who were caught staring at pretty women's tits not because they're pretty but because of the biological need for _milk,_ and _security._ "Why would I lie about something like that just to make people I'm never gonna see again after graduation leave me alone? Bullshit..."

"That's what they all say."

"Seriously, watch who _you_ say that to around here. I prefer you alive."

Demyx sat untouched by my warning and returned to his vocabulary packet, occasionally shimmying to the beat inside his head, mouthing words to a song I didn't know. I watched him for a minute before turning around and picking up my pencil. Two seconds after deciding Pemberley was the stupidest word I'd ever seen, I tossed the pencil aside and went onto concentrating on the clock's minute hand, trying to see if I could catch it moving.

"Watching it won't make it go any faster, Mr. Vasquez." My teacher, who was as ancient as my surname, gave me the kind of stare that ripped muscle off bones. "Finish your assignment."

"I'm finished." I was lying.

"I'll give you _another_ packet." She knew this.

School ended with that sweet-sweet bell, and I strode to my locker with shoving palms and impatient groaning whenever someone decided to take their sweet fucking time socializing while they walked. I forced my way through a crowd consisting of southern belles wearing shirts sporting association with California (none of them had ever been to California), devout followers of Kurt Cobainism, congregated jocks who'd recently been recorded shoving hoses up their assholes, Japanese appropriators, Urban Outfitters, rednecks, chicks who wore Lucky jeans with shit kickers and dated the rednecks, hobolites, Sid Vicious apologists, the cluster of miserable kids who wore black and white stripes and made out in front anyone willing to cast them a glance, and the rest of the lost and found wallflowers. Finally, though, there was the God Squad, aka the shining beacon of the all-American lie with Achiever enneagram types.

The quad was gathered around Roxas' locker discussing their eventual trip to some South American country where they would hand out secondhand Made in China merchandise not for the sake of others, but because it made _them_ feel like better people. That alone summed up my intolerance for their existences, but particularly Roxas'. Since Roxas had been four-years-old he'd gone on these mission trips with his father who just so happened to be the head honcho of basically everyone and everything, which in turn made him Prince of the Wholesome and Iconic.

Just seeing him in the hallway made me contemplate shaking laundry flakes into my mouth and collapsing onto the floor so that I could begin convulsing and screaming for the Lord and Savior to save me from the Unholy Wrath that was raping my soul. That blue glint to his eyes that was so self-satisfied because he was _winning_ , he was _saved_ , he was fucking _sanctified_ , burned a hole through my boots and into the marrow of my femurs. Leaned against the locker with a head tilt one wrong push away from being slammed into metal, I wanted to eradicate him for being so fucking _good_. He never questioned anything. He wasn't even religious on the basis of knowing the cultural significance of his actions. To _be_ means to _understand_ , and he didn't understand who or what he was. He just _was_.

"I can't wait." Kairi, the self-proclaimed Mother Mary of the group, which essentially made them seem like a biblical LARP session, was holding hands with Sora, her boyfriend of two years. "Only a few more hours."

They were a pair that flaunted their relationship because, unlike the majority of teenagers on the brink of graduation, they were both supposedly still virgins and tried to guilt trip hellfire sinners like myself with that footnote. It was lie because Kairi was far from virgin status. I knew this because I'd been the one to take her virginity the summer before behind the football field's bleachers. That hookup was during the single revival my parents dragged me to in hopes of making our lives easier in the community. She'd picked on me, which somehow morphed into flirting, sucking face hard and heavy and then her tugging down her panties and promising not to tell if I didn't tell. The sex was quick and terrible for the both of us and another notch in the proverbial bed post of adolescent shame. Kairi had cried because it hurt, which was somehow my fault, and we hadn't dared to breathe a word of it after numbly sitting in my Jeep in disbelief because - What if Sora found out? It wasn't worth the bragging rights and the single time I profusely apologized to anyone from the God Squad.

My locker was unfortunately near theirs, but it gave me the excuse to eavesdrop on their excessive stupidity. For some reason I couldn't even begin to explain to myself, hearing Roxas utter his total bullshit was somewhat comforting. It was hard, even after three years of botched silence, to completely disregard his existence. He had been my best friend for years and I had to wonder why I had taken the falling out personally, even though I'd driven the final nail in for the both of us. More than likely it was due to the lack of a total explanation. My value of friendship surpassed the typical standard, and it was strange to me how two people could go from talking to each other every day to being strangers who strode past each other without making eye contact.

"The concert is going to be awesome," Sora said as he let go of Kairi's hand to playfully punch Roxas' bicep. "Their lyrics change kids' lives. I can really feel our Lord's spirit when I listen to their songs."

Sora had knack for making each of his sentences excruciatingly painful to overhear.

"I know, right?" Roxas' excitement forced me to gag on my tongue while gazing at my reflection in the mirror inside my locker door. It was like watching one of those classroom videos advocating abstinence instead of safe sex. Primary color polos and khaki pants galore with a single POC in a wheelchair because it kills two minorities with one stone. "I'm going to have to meet you there, though. I have dinner at the Vasquez's tonight, remember? I'll miss _maybe_ one song. Just record it for me or something."

Kairi made a face only to sputter out bitchy laughter. "I'll pray for you."

He leaned against a locker. "They're good people."

Riku snorted, and Sora was quick to voice what was on all of their minds, even mine. "Axel Vasquez isn't good. He's the epitome of all that isn't good."

Roxas shrugged as if unaffected by their input. "He's quirky."

A rousing choice of an adjective.

"He's a sinner." Kairi said matter-of-fact and the melodrama made my face twitch.

Because I could only handle so much of their conversations, especially when they involved me, I shoved my books into an already crammed locker and turned to head toward the back doors where people were filtering to their motorized rust buckets. I vehemently told myself right then and there I wasn't a bad person; even Roxas understood that my moral platform simply sat away from his group's straight laced one. What I _did_ have were my vices, which made me human. Being seventeen and guzzling Fireball, smoking whatever, popping nerve pills to get through a few AP exams and fucking once in a while wasn't something out of the ordinary for the majority of my peer group. The town was crawling with youth like me, myself and I due to how small and lackluster every street was. A lack of entertainment made kids antsy, and they filled their time with either two things: drugs or Jesus. In some ways it was a pretty good way to justify substance abuse, but it wasn't even a cover up. It was very real.

Stepping out into the southern Kentucky heat, I wondered how long it'd be before the humidity finally dispersed. I liked being able to roll out of bed in a hooded sweatshirt and comfortably sleep with the hood draped over my head during first period's lectures. Until then, I was condemned to muscle tees, cutoffs and slips ons.

"How're you, Mr. Vasquez?" My vice principal, a lemon faced woman with an inability to understand children and a reputation for hating her own, placed her hand on my shoulder and pulled me back before I could step onto the blacktop. It must've been a sight considering she was barely past the five foot line, and I was already the ungodly height of six feet and two inches of towering obnoxiousness. "Do you happen to remember our last conversation about that bullring in your nose?"

My expression fell. "Something about how it accentuates my high cheek bones."

"We agreed you could keep the earrings in because of the unmentionable body part your lobes look like when they're out, but a nose ring isn't the same thing. Next time I see you it best be _gone_."

An inaudible grumble drifted between us as I parted from her corpse hand grip. She'd delayed my hunt to find someone willing to give me a ride home. The Jeep I'd begged my parents to buy me was in my uncle's shop because the transmission was out again, which meant I'd be fortunate to have her fixed by the end of my college career. Already I had a doctorate in mind. That was a long time to slave beneath the thumb of academics.

Sucking on my teeth while cross-examining the parking lot, I spotted Demyx ducking into the conformist Mustang his mom had bought him directly after he came out to her and everyone else. She'd never been able to produce more than one kid and had always wanted a daughter, so Demyx being gay was the next best thing in her opinion. Though her obvious lack of knowledge about gender and sexual orientation was grueling, she rewarded him constantly for doing the backwards tango with men approximately five years his senior. The amount of heat she got for accepting him was almost awe-inspiring, but then again, she was the kind of lady who walked lobsters on leashes and smoked cigarettes during PTA meetings wearing a leopard print jumpsuit. Her parenting methods were admirable in the way she constantly reminded Demyx that as long as he was alive and not making her post bail, he was incredible.

Once behind his car, I smacked the back window a couple times and swung around. While I rapidly tapped along the driver's side window, Demyx stared at me through the glass, unmoving but brimming with faux disgust. He finally rolled down the window, humming along to his music and bobbing his head.

"Yes, my dusty light bulb?" He grabbed his Versace sunglasses and checked himself out in the mirror. "It's a shame some people aren't as good looking as we are, you know?"

"Yeah, a real travesty. _Hey_ -" I paused and flashed him a charismatic smile, suddenly leaning into the window. "Can you give me a ride home, man? It's on the way."

He exhaled as if I'd told him to climb Olympus Mons. "Get in before I run you over."

As I yanked open the passenger door, Demyx fiddled with his stereo's buttons before settling on a song I didn't recognize. It wasn't too much of a burden on him since I lived in the middle of town. If I'd felt up to it, then I probably could've walked home the same way I had a million times before, but I was lazy, and sweating meant having to shower before Roxas and his family came over. In retrospect, I probably wouldn't have showered anyway, but I was all for excusing myself on the most logic of levels just in case someone asked.

Demyx made it out of the parking lot only for my phone to begin vibrating. I stared at the touchscreen and all at once heat flooded into my face because it was someone I genuinely admired. It wasn't everyday Xaldin called me, but when he did there was always some kind of opportune reason accompanying it. For so long I'd been the baby of the group I hung out with outside of town, but recently things had started changing significantly. Most of it had to do with how the scene we were involved with was dramatically shifting as younger crowds took over, but being acknowledged by people in their mid-twenties who were seen as elders was the ultimate kind of compliment.

It took me a couple seconds to answer the phone because I didn't want to sound _stupid_. "Hello-"

"Slut Smashers is playing tonight." Xaldin's voice was like two bears fighting. "Bulldog Cafe at nine o'clock, and then we're going to Larxene's afterward. You said you were on break this week. Better be there."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek and casually picked at my ear. "No kidding, huh?"

"They haven't been in town in a few months. If you don't have a ticket, then I'll let you in through the back door. Try to be there a little before so it's less conspicuous and kids don't get pissed off."

He hung up, and I knew I didn't have a choice. Demyx's music aside, we drove in a short silence. The entire time Demyx had been giving me an expectant look, but I hadn't noticed. My mind was cycling through ways to somehow get permission to take my dad's car and get the hell out of dodge. He was pretty good about me leaving for a couple days since Mom didn't leave the house all that often. She was an intense homemaker who preferred walking because it kept her fit, which she was. She was forty going on twenty-one.

My chauffeur was the one to break the silence. "What was that all about?"

"There's this show in Louisville tonight. Somehow gotta get there."

He flashed me a sad smile I didn't get right away. "Tonight as in _tonight_?"

"Yeah, so?"

"You have dinner with the preacher, my dying star." Demyx laughed at me before I could get a word out. "Bless your fucking heart. You're only a little bit fucked, aren't you?"

Xaldin was the co-owner of Bulldog Cafe, which was a cramped and dusty venue that doubled as a bar. After watching me get my ass beat multiple times for being an obnoxious shithead with his friends, he took over and distantly raised me to be the way I am now, aka a respectable trash lord. Since he was the owner of Bulldog, I could get into most shows for free, though he was a strong believer in not letting me drink in his place until I hit the legal age. That was solely to save his own ass, though. If we were in a private residence, he was the one enabling me to choke down as much as I could, because what was the point of being friends with them if I had no alcohol tolerance?

Passing up the opportunity to see Slut Smashers for free was a crime. There was no refuting I had to go. Being seventeen meant this kind of thing was a matter of life or death. Worldwide economic implosion and the ever growing apathy of Generation Y? Who cared when you could pay to get roundhouse kicked into a cement floor and call it a coping mechanism for all the disenchantment you're experiencing?

"I'll get out of it." I went back to picking at my ear, ignoring the smell on my fingers that was gradually growing stronger. "I will _not_ miss that show."

"Like your mother is going to let you skip out on the Holy Rollers and their angelic spawn."

"Let's be rational here. I'm an eyesore. What mother would really want to see me at a table with the preacher and his freshly dry cleaned family?"

"It's _your_ mother."

Point taken, but quickly disregarded as soon as I stepped out of his car and onto my dad's freshly mowed lawn. Before he drove away, I offered Demyx a dry air kiss, which he caught and then proceeded to toss out the window. I was still laughing when I pushed open the front door and encountered the stench of turkey and green beans. Mom had been cooking since I walked out the front door with a toaster strudel and cup of her hazelnut coffee in hand, but my appetite was repressed due to the concept of actually missing a Slut Smashers show. My bag hit the tile in the foyer and I was still finagling my shoes off when I entered the kitchen. There was no reason for me to attend that goddamn dinner. My face was a fucking mess, not to mention I was tasteless. My sheer existence was synonymous with the silent fart in an elevator, the horse that starts shitting while running the Derby, the specks of black that get stuck in creases of teeth after eating well done toast. For me to sit with everyone at dinner wasn't useful so much as it was an exposé of my mother's tolerance level for a teenager she didn't have the heart to draw back in.

"Mom," I began, shucking my boots off in the middle of the kitchen, "I need you to do me a solid."

My mother, a woman lacking in empathy and desperately in need of an interpersonal communications course, stood in front of her gas oven basting _the_ golden turkey. She furrowed her drawn on eyebrows while going through the motions of her hard work, but I wasn't sure if she was directing that scorn at me or the roasting bird. Mom was critical when it came to her food and I weekly witnessed her spend half a day on a single pie only to go to bed as if her child had died because- _the crust wasn't flaky enough, Axel_. She was a little too Sylvia Plath about her baking for my taste, but I'm not one to over analyze whatever lights the fire in someone's gut. She was passionate about pies, and I'd once been wholly devoted to being her annoying song bird, but that was a story for another day, or you know- _never_. Might as well let sleeping dogs lie where they lay or however that saying goes. Irrelevant information, actually.

"What, Axel?" Maybe it was the way her strawberry blonde hair was thrown back into a tight bun, or maybe I was just _that_ exhausting of a kid, but something about that wear and tear didn't fit her. She looked older. "Please don't ask for anything ridiculous right before _they_ come over. All of my energy is reserved for that."

"There's this show." I kicked my shoes to the side so that she wouldn't have to pick them up. "But it's tonight. Actually, it's in about seven hours so maybe I could eat and leave midway- "

"Absolutely not."

" _Woman_ ," I snapped, trying to assert my non-existent authority. " _Please_ \- "

" _Boy_ ," she barked back before pointing the ladle at me. "You are staying in for _one_ night. If you try to pull a fast one on your father and me, then we will have those ears of yours cut and sewn up."

I leaned against the wall and felt the world sink. "But it's _Slut Smashers_."

She returned to her turkey.

"It's not a _family_ dinner, though." I wasn't going to let the conversation die and strode toward the refrigerator as if setting my permanence there. Suddenly, I yanked open the door with a quirked eyebrow. "It's a _preacher_ dinner."

"Roxas will be here." She'd said that as if it was supposed to make me feel better about the situation. "That'll be fun. Someone your age being there to take off the edge."

Reaching into the fridge, I located the last radioactive Ski and mindlessly uncapped it with a pointed twist. "Roxas is nothing but a brainwashed sack of loose lipped—"

Before I could utter the final word Mommy Dearest took the ladle and whacked my arm with it as hard as she could. I opened my mouth in a silent scream and gestured at her while holding the spot where she'd _abused_ me. "I'll beat you blue if you don't start watching your mouth. You're getting a little too ripe these days."

That was my cue to leave the kitchen, and I vanished into the living room where my dad was lounged out on the couch. Thanks to him being a lab technician, he only worked maybe twice a week, unless he decided to take on a couple of overtime shifts. Thought his shifts were intensely long, he really preferred having all the extra time off. We're talking twenty-four hour long shifts of playing with blood and shit in the name of a middle class paycheck. The downside being that, whenever he found out I was sick, he cornered me with a needle and the obsessive need to do my blood work right there at the dining room table. The stress from that alone gave me the runs, and nothing was ever fixed.

"Slut Smashers is playing tonight."

He kept his immediate concentration on the news. "Talk to your mother."

When I plopped down onto the loveseat across from him, I gave him the most dejected look I could muster. "Yeah- you see, I _did_."

"Can't help you out tonight." He scratched the back of his head before pushing a set of fingers through his salt and pepper hair. His almond-shaped eyes were surrounded by subtle wrinkles, and it was then I realized this day had him just as stressed as it had Mom. He hated these dinners as much as I did. Plus, knowing him, he didn't want to suffer alone at the dinner table. There was real camaraderie in groaning at every impressive new snippet of 'do good' Roxas and his family exploited over mashed potatoes. So, I really couldn't blame him for wanting to lock me in for the night, but we had spent the last five years bouncing off one another's misery, and I thought I deserved a night off. I'd covered for him more than once when he ran off to Fantasy Football. It was _my_ turn.

"We're a miserable pair, old man."

"Apple never falls far from the tree."

There was no hope. Dad wasn't going to let me off the hook, and from there, I trudged into my room that doubled as Chernobyl. Only my mother had the iron nerve to walk into my personal living space. When I was young, I'd once informed her the food rotting beneath my bed had created a rare ecosystem worth protecting, but she'd countered that by pointing out the socks that'd been worn multiple times tossed on top of my dresser and the festering shit heap of sweated-in and dried-stiff shirts tossed onto my closet floor. Things hadn't changed all that much over the past couple of years, but most of my empty soda bottles were the captors of cigarette ash and piss, and I couldn't pick up an ashtray without getting black resin on my fingers. Sometimes I ran into unopened bags of hot Cheetos, but my room was mostly comprised of food filth, dead skin flakes, and an ever growing collection of band merchandise.

Maybe I felt bad for worrying my mom, but I reached down with a defeated jerk and began stuffing whatever was unneeded into a black trash bag I mainly used for when my ashtrays overflowed. There wasn't much to my room beyond papers and chip bags, which is why I was surprised when I found the arts and crafts Roxas and I had made back when we'd gone to vacation Bible school together. Roxas was clearly the artistically inclined one between us, and I'd been using our coloring sessions as subconscious psychotherapeutic artwork for my serial killer potential. Mom had collected them in a brown folder, told me to do something with them, and my bitterness was how the collection had ended up stuffed beneath my bed along with dirty boxers and Kleenex full of dried cum and shame.

Because of morbid curiosity, and maybe a little bit of something else, I was soon cross legged with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of my mouth and a stack balanced on my left thigh. There was something hollowing about the trip down Memory Lane. It was almost as if someone had dug a melon scooper into my stomach and slowly carved out spherical shapes of my viscera, but I couldn't figure out why that was. I was so certain that it really didn't matter.


	3. Fiducia

Showing Mom the collection of nostalgia seemed like the right idea only because I wanted her to validate the strange part of my life she remembered better than I could. I knew that, through the bitterness I held onto with strangling conviction, some of the memories contained within the coloring pages, dyed macaroni necklaces and yellowing Elmer’s Glue, were simply _good_. In the very bottom of the folder was a forgotten stack of pictures that could’ve been used as supporting evidence, but one fading Polaroid in particular prompted me to set the stack aside and seek out my house’s one true matriarch. The back of the photo was labeled June 2000 in my mom’s neat cursive and the front held the image of me at eight-years-old squishing a barely younger Roxas’ cheeks. His swirling cowlick was significantly less tamed and his hands were covered in muddy finger paints, but the most noteworthy detail was how we were smiling. It wasn’t a casual kind of happiness shared between two goofy fast friends, but cheeky grins that made it evident our entire relationship was hinged on the greatest inside joke two children could create. 

“Mom--” She was lethally hand mashing potatoes and shot me a stare implying it _better be good_. “Calm down for a second, and check this out. I was actually cleaning up my room and found it.”

She shoved the pan toward the counter’s backsplash and dried her hands on a gravy-stained towel before stepping beside me to peer at the picture. While I’d inherited Dad’s hair, eye shape and olive skin tone, every other striking feature was homage to the woman who’d pushed me out in a tub of water with zero pain medication. Mom hardly stood three inches beneath me, towering over my dad in her always present power pumps, and her radioactive green eyes and faint sheet of freckles had contaminated my genetics by a stroke of luck. We were heart-shaped with thin lips, and I always thought about our similarities when we were close enough to be compared. Above all else, I favored her, and I took pride in that. She was one of my favorite people. 

“Well, would you look at that? I haven’t seen this in _years_.” She gingerly plucked it from my fingers and her smile grew sad. She was sad about what no longer was and more than likely the only child she’d ever be able to produce was on the brink of leaving the nest. “We should show this to them tonight. I have to make sure I’m not the only one who feels old today. Maybe we could even have it blown up and framed.”

“That’d be kind of weird, Mom.” She wouldn’t let me take the picture back. I groaned. “Come on! Roxas and I aren’t even on speaking terms anymore. Don’t make me regret showing this to you.”

“I’m the one who took this picture, anyway. It’s mine to embarrass you with until the end of time.” She tucked it away in her apron, laughing at my distress that eventually turned to defeated disgust and an injured sniff. “Axel, at least change your shirt. They’ll be here any minute and you’re looking a little...”

“... _incredible_?”  
  
“Switched at birth.”

“ _Mom,_ really?”

There was no time for me to change, anyway. Our doorbell rang and Dad’s muffled groan echoed toward us before he rolled off the couch and changed the channel from BBC to Fox News, as if Bill O’Reilly’s voice wouldn’t give us indigestion. Mom wistfully stared at the microwave’s digital clock, attempting to process the exact amount of time she was going to be forced through what we jokingly referred to as ‘psychological warfare,’ but whether or not she figured it out was never confirmed. Dad had turned the corner with Roxas and his dad who was generically named _Dave_ , which was clearly short for the biblical David. Meanwhile, his mom was lingering in the doorway pretending to admire Mom’s wall of framed pictures, when really my parents and I knew she was silently critiquing. Marybeth had once been named Miss Kentucky, and because of her local legacy, some backstreet behind Walmart was named for her and her completely useless history degree. Currently, she ran the local Planned Parenthood, was the dominant force behind the local PTA, and spent her leisure time orchestrating potlucks and doing pilates. 

Roxas didn’t acknowledge me, but fuck him, so whatever. Since we’d last considered one another friends, he’d morphed into the most picturesque piece of apple pie I’d encountered to date. The problem was he wasn’t all that à la Mode, so he was this great idea without the bits that made him something worth gnawing on. Roxas was a conventionally attractive track star who was not only the co-captain of the varsity soccer team but an honor roll student to the very epicenter of his immaculate core. On top of these already admirable traits, he volunteered in soup kitchens, attended Young Republican meetings, and still found time to attend Skate-4-Jesus seminars once a month. The only reason he didn’t have a job was because his parents didn’t want him to compromise potential scholarships. Roxas’ academics were priority. Not to mention he was his dad’s gopher, which in turn meant he was the church’s gopher.  

So _of course_ Roxas was genuinely kind to my parents as if etiquette wove through his woodwork, and he did more than enough to acknowledge _them_. Between asking Mom how her pumpkin vines were doing and whether or not Dad supported the latest hospital addition, there was no refuting how I’d morphed into a slimy potato skin in the corner of our kitchen. The displacement only intensified because, before I could do something on my own to seem like an ingrate, Roxas did it for me by striding to my mom’s side and asking if she needed help. 

That single gesture managed to set the tone for the dinner. Roxas made me look like an asshole in my own house and in the eyes of my very own _mother_ as if it were a part of his divine calling. To say I was contemplating digging out the rat poison when Roxas seamlessly fell into line beside Mom, smashing potatoes and continuing to illicit well orchestrated conversation, was an understatement.The only reason I begrudgingly reached for the cabinets to begin tugging out stacks of plates and handfuls of silverware was because I couldn’t poison the guy without being caught. Roxas had been in my house for less than five minutes and managed to make eating shit seem less painful than existing in the same space. This was a new record. He was becoming refined. 

“Axel, your dad was telling me you’re applying to NYU.”

I shot my dad a stare but it lapsed into a shrug as I set plates down, counting them over and over again as a way to keep myself from saying something snide. “It’s a shot in the dark, but I’m applying.”

“Private schools are _expensive_.” He was a blond, tanned piece of smug trash who thrived on disenfranchised youth. It literally kept his church going. “That’s why we’re keeping Roxas in state until he goes onto medical school, and even then, UK _is_ the best.”

My blood pressure thrived like cancer on yeast. “Some of us plan for the future on our own and don’t have the luxury of entirely depending on our families. I’m paying for my tuition mostly on my own. Not because my parents don’t want to help me, but because I’m not going to ask that of them when they’ve already done so much.”

He chuckled. He actually fucking _chuckled_. “Dinner smells wonderful.”

Parents who feign ignorance are both the best and worst kind of adults. Mom’s slave labor was spread out on the table only a handful of minutes after Dave ruthlessly disregarded the fist I’d thrown in his direction, and not to anyone’s surprise, Roxas begrudgingly took a seat beside me with a despairing exhale. It wasn’t that our parents didn’t know we hated each other. That’d been hashed out years ago via a mother-to-mother phone call when Roxas told Marybeth I’d kicked him out of the house, explaining why he refused stand by me at church. The grownups had simply decided to collectively ignore it by acting as if our break off had never transpired. Parents are riddled with ulterior motives, and they justify lying in an attempt to keep the peace, but it never subdued the horrible atmosphere the both of us built when together. Our parents could play pretend all they wanted, but it would never make the hairs on my neck lay flat when the heat of his bicep radiated against mine. Pretending didn’t stop the vehement disregard. 

“So, Axel..." Roxas’ dad leaned forward so that I was obligated to look up from my beans. He wasn't going to let me pretend I was invisible simply to be a spiteful asshole. "Did you hear about that concert Roxas is going to tonight? Concerts are sort of your scene these days. You might know the band."

I opened my mouth, but Roxas cut me off. "It's not his kind of music."

"What makes you say that?" Dave winked at me as if I were a part of an inside joke. I had to bite my lip to keep from making fun of someone, something, anything. "The band is pretty heavy, too. When he first started listening to that screaming genre I wasn’t happy about it, but then he handed me the lyrics and explained how people with all tastes are trying to glorify God now. Roxas is starting to become a little rebellious in his old age, but it’s all okay with me as long as the true message stays close to his heart.”

 

re·bel·lious

re·bel·lious [ri béllyəss]  
 _adj_  
1\. opposing or defying authority: opposing or defying authority, accepted moral codes, or social conventions  
2\. fighting to overthrow government or authority: fighting to overthrow a government or other authority

 

“Sounds really rad,” I said with such unabashed sincerity my dad sputtered into his wine glass. Mom smacked his back with a loud clap and asked Marybeth about next Sunday’s breakfast. “Must be a late show.”

Roxas’ favorite band was like Sizzling Wok or Cast Iron Cornbread or something like that.

“You two look almost done. I was about to ask--”

A coping mechanism set in. Dave continued speaking, but as his lips moved to formulate words, I started spelling the name of every item I laid eyes on in order to block him out. Otherwise I might’ve thrown myself over the table to snap his wholesomely white and entitled neck right there in front of his wife and child. 

T-U-R-K-E-Y

S-A-L-T

K-N-I-F-E

B-R-E-A-D

R-O-X-A-S

“Axel, did you hear me? I asked if you wanted to go with Roxas to see Frying Pan.”

D-Y-S-E-N-T-E-R-Y 

Roxas inhaled his fork, and I found myself scrambling not to knock over the mandatory dinner time glass of milk Mom refused to let me bypass, even though I hated milk that wasn’t drenching Cocoa Puffs. Something about the frailty of my body and how I was going to _most definitely_ die from bone cancer or another equally tragic endgame disease because ‘Axel, you’re already _so_ skinny.’ Escaping her nutritional tyranny was a joke in itself. 

Her totalitarian grip on my life leaked into more places than the grain of my terrible eating habits. Just as I was prepared to politely inform Roxas’ dad there was no way in hell I was going to make myself _that_ suicidal via some Holy Rock ‘n’ Roller concert, Mommy Dearest casually stood up to retrieve more bread and simultaneously cast me a look over her shoulder that could’ve burnt down an orphanage. The muscles in my forearms clenched and it took me ten straight seconds of me reminding myself I’d derived from the sanctity of her womb, and therefore owed her my respect before deciding on what to say.

“I’ll go.”

God, it _burned_. It actually hurt to agree to take the trip, and Roxas was equally as surprised as my dad. Both were grimacing in well-hidden horror, and I wanted to swan dive off the Burj Khalifa. Dave was self-satisfied, Marybeth’s expression was more rock solid than her mediocre boob job, and the world was spiraling. Every way out presented itself on a roster, but if I ran to the bathroom and stuck my fingers down my throat to feign illness, then Mom would’ve known and still made me go. I was stuck. I absolutely had to go or be grounded until the end of forever.

H-E-L-L

The end of dinner was silent on Roxas’ and my part. The only good thing about Roxas’ dad was how Dave had the uncanny ability to never ask why I didn’t attend church. Mr. Sanctimonious had better tact than that considering how we both knew _exactly_ why. He also understood putting the spotlight on someone wasn't the way to go about making a profit. That was why, instead of questioning my religious endeavors or lack thereof, he exploited the strives of the God Squad and decided Mom would be interested in the topic of homosexual reform camps. Children being stripped of their identities and verbally abused by archaic scripture was always appetizing, and I was dying for a second serving when he began discussing their gender appropriation methods that were -- _very humane_.

Marybeth checked her iPhone’s clock just as I stood to clear the table. "Shouldn't the boys be going?"

My dad made his soul known as he reached into his back pocket for the keys to the car. Without giving me a single revealing glance, he tossed the keys in front of me and they landed like a relic. “Is it alright if my boy drives?”

_So_ trusting.

Dave flashed me a politely suspicious stare, and the campiness was making my brain contract. I wondered if we were participating in real life because suddenly I was the cliché bad boy in an after school special, and there seemed to be this impending doom that made me believe we were a second away from cramming into a convertible and driving over the Golden Gate Bridge. "Does he know where the venue is?"

"He’s in Louisville once a week. The kid knows the place better than I do.”

That’s when the epiphany happened. All at once it occurred to me that the only venues around were the ones in Louisville -- excluding the lesser relevant ones in Lexington, which was basically in the opposite direction. That meant I could take Roxas to his happy Christian jam session, go to see Slut Smashers and then turn around and pick up Roxas on my way back. Silently applauding my ingenuity, I wondered where my smarmy-ass Noble Peace Prize was hidden. 

"Get him home by curfew," Dave said as I stood up and practically lunged for my wallet.

"I'll take good care of him." 

Roxas didn't say a word aside from thanking Mom for her _delicious_ turkey and seasoned beans. Instead he quietly pushed away from the table, strode toward the front door, opened it with the lightest touch and then passive aggressively slammed it behind him hard enough to make the china rattle. The hour long drive was already looking up. At this rate, he would be baptizing me in a cow shit creek before we even made it to Louisville’s giant portrait of Colonel Sanders. My life would be expunged of all tainted foul, angels would join in a choir, and I would marry Kairi and follow through with the ever important missionary style solely for procreation. _Absolutely beautiful_. 

“Be careful,” Mom called out after me as I grabbed my jacket off the coat rack.

“I mean it! Call me when you get there, Axel!”

Waving her off, I stepped outside and whipped the heavy key chain around my fingers only to see Roxas brooding on the driveway, with his arms crossed over his chest and a purple beanie tugged down over his messy hair. He must’ve had it in his pocket because it was a quick new addition to that stupid V-neck with some logo for a band like Dependent-L printed across the front in hideous typeface. 

"Why are you coming with me?" Roxas bit into that question with the audacity of a python as soon as I stepped off the porch. It took every final nerve to keep me from tossing him onto the gravel and pissing on his face. Instead of giving him the satisfaction of looking offended, I twisted my lips to the side with an appraising look over. 

We were standing outside of my dad's Subaru with parents within earshot, which was why it shocked me he'd asked about anything right then and there. Roxas was the type that held a continuous grudge. The whole ‘forgive and forget’ thing wasn’t a virtue that sat too well on his stomach. It didn’t help how, on top of his quiet anger, I was still trying to figure out what I’d done to make him hate me so much in the first place. The major falling out with the church occurred long after we stepped away from one another, so it wasn’t that. Though, leaving could’ve very well been the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Either way, it was without explanation, and I refused to believe that tiny fight we’d had with one another was seriously why he wouldn’t look me in the eye without turning beet red. 

"My mother was giving me a death glare. Not to mention," I paused as I yanked open the driver's door, and right before I slid into the driver’s side I pointedly stared at him with a sly smile, "we could _really_ use some bonding time, don’t you think? What’s it been again? Almost _four_ years?"

Roxas stared me down without faltering, and it was the shortest lived standoff we’d ever had. He pulled open the door and plopped down in his seat so hard the car bounced. My breath caught in annoyance, but I followed suit and found my place in the driver’s seat. Shoving my cord into the aux jack, I didn’t ask if he had a music preference. There was no need, and that was the start to our journey; me dominating the situation as hard as I could and refusing to give him a millimeter of room to breathe. For once, he’d be in _my_ oppressive atmosphere. 

You know -- it wasn’t so much that I was shocked the majority of the ride to Louisville ended up lacking in conversation, but it still _annoyed_ me. I could only handle a certain amount of drawn out thinking while sitting beside a person fully capable of holding a conversation, but there wasn’t a way to approach starting a conversation without becoming an uncivilized piece of baked trash. I needed to pick at him. There was something about digging into Roxas that made the skin along my biceps ripple from satisfaction.

"Heard you prayed for me." Riku was going to pay dearly for me opening my mouth.

Roxas shifted uncomfortably in his seat, eyes bleeding onto the pavement my dad’s economy car was devouring. "I don't know what you’re talking about."

"Don't feed me that," I said, trying to keep the tone of the conversation light-hearted. “You’re _worried_.”

"You need God in your life. Everyone talks about what you do."

"Why do people even care about what I do? No, wait. I have an even _better_ question. Why are _you_ so interested?" My grip on the steering wheel tightened over and over again, and the tip of my tongue flicked along the edge of my left canine. "When your  _friends_  need God more than I ever will."

Roxas blew a raspberry. It was jarring enough to make me laugh, but my laughter dissipated when I glanced over to see he’d arched a single eyebrow and followed through with gloating smile. "I have no idea what you're talking about when I’m not the one who follows the _flock_.” His tongue dramatically licked the roof of his mouth when he enunciated the ‘f,’ and my stomach seized.“That’s what you’re doing. Trending your way into a completely unfulfilling lifestyle that’s going to pigeonhole you with sin. What’s it like having an entirely predictable future?"

This was him deluding himself because groups as tight as his _think_ they know everything about everyone. He wanted to protect them in a way that was reading as Jonestown. Roxas had always stood on a precipice, but if he kept lying to himself, then he was going to make believe a bridge and fall to an inevitable death.

"Kairi isn't a virgin," I stated as a last ditch effort to reassert my ‘correctness.’ “Not that virginity matters outside of the sandbox, but you’re still in there, so...”

Roxas’ jaw visibly tightened. "Right -- and how would _you_ know?"

"I fucked her last fall and she liked it." The last bit wasn’t true, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t about to tell anyone about how both of our guts churned butter whenever we thought back on that adolescent error. 

"You _didn't_. She's a been with Sora for _two_ years." Roxas had gone from keeping his head pressed against the cool glass to turning his body toward me, commanding my acknowledgment in the deepening semi-darkness.  

My critical tone wasn’t about to let up. “You act like just because a couple of high schoolers say they’re in a relationship means their genitalia’s been fused together by cement. Are you fucking stupid? Are you actually still locked into the whimsy of being in love for the first time? We go to the same school. Tell me you _haven’t_ heard about all the gossipy-ass drama centering around _infidelity_. There's no permanence in high school, Roxas. Sora and Kairi are going to go to different colleges, and they’re going to walk down two different paths, and that’s that. One of them is probably going to call the other the third week of first semester and own up to the fact the shithole we live in is full of debilitating propaganda they want nothing to do with anymore.”

He stared at me, unamused. 

I leaned back with a shoulder sagging exhale. "You don't know a thing about your friends."

"You don't even _talk_ to my friends."

"You _know_ I talk to Riku."

All at once I owed Riku Godiva and an apologetic fruit basket.

When I drifted onto the freeway and melded into traffic all I could think about was how _good_ it’d feel ditching Roxas in the streets of Louisville. A tiny white boy like him was a direct target on Fourth Street, but he wasn’t my responsibility. I kept reminding myself of that over and over again as the sound of an acoustic one-man band popped up on shuffle. It filled the silence between us until the small southern city broke over the horizon, and I rapidly dug through my jacket pocket for a lighter and pack of Reds before tossing them onto Roxas’ lap. Without glancing away from the high stress traffic, my fingers reached over and tapped the pack on his thigh.

“Light one for me, Co-pilot. I fucking hate driving around this place.”

Perplexed, Roxas picked up the lighter and tugged back the top of the hard pack, obviously having no clue what to do. I didn’t want to be shocked, but there was something infuriating about him not having the basic life skill of knowing how to light a goddamn cigarette. Inhaling like one of those pregnant ladies on TLC, I went to dig out a cigarette and explain, but he instinctively snapped his hand down to stop me from getting any closer to his upper-thigh. The reflex was poignant, and I cleared my throat and opened my elevated fingers like a spider prepared to lunge. 

“ _Fiducia_ , Roxas.”

_Fiducia_ is latin for confidence and a type of faith Martin Luther coined when he was all about his Reformation. Nowadays it’s mostly defined as ‘trust,’ which was something Roxas and I had picked up on as kids in Bible study. We’d found the way the word split from our tongues satisfying, and it’d turned into a word we tossed back and forth when experiencing moments of either weakness, pain or silent hardship neither of us wanted to discuss. We had redefined the word as ‘trust me I know and it’s okay,’ but I hadn’t said it in so long there was something haunting about the enunciation. It was like prying off the lid of a nailed down pine box and kicking up corpse dust. 

“ _Fiducia_ ,” he repeated and released my hand. “I don’t know how to light one.”

“That much is obvious.” I lifted the pack so he could tug the smoke out himself. “Stick it between your lips and inhale while the end’s in the flame. Don’t give me that look. I’m not asking you to smoke it. Hold the smoke in your mouth if it bothers you that much and just blow it out, alright? See...”

Roxas did as I said, and it was seamless. The fluidity as something as simple and commonplace as smoking a cigarette was not supposed to look good on another person, but it looked good on him. When the cherry was alive and well, he handed off the cigarette and I wasn’t about to ignore how he’d managed to hold in the smoke only to exhale it in a slow even stream. It was as if he’d done it before when really he was just horrifyingly observant.

“That was gross.”


	4. Lambs Don't Eat Lions

Finding a parking lot close to both of our destinations was a joke, and in order for me to make it to Xaldin's venue, I was looking at a mile long power walk through Louisville's gross ambience. This wouldn't have been an issue had Roxas and I left before dinner and not prolonged the trip by gnawing turkey and avoiding eye contact, but we hadn't. There wasn't anything I could do about the situation except show up to Bulldog's looking rode hard and put away wet with raw lungs. Hanging out and eating at Spinelli's afterward was the eventual payoff, but that wasn't too much of a buffer in the present. Defeated by the situation, I tilted my head toward the sky and groaned out an unnecessary ' _fuck_ ' Roxas didn't acknowledge.

"What do you mean you're not going with me?"

I held tight to my cigarette. " _About that_ \- I'm a man with my own agenda, you see."

Roxas and I were standing behind the car in an eerily empty lot, and I was fiddling. Fiddling with my wallet, my lighter, the pockets of the cotton hoodie I'd partially zipped up before making the drive. I wanted to think I was fiddling because I was antsy to be with my friends, but truth be told, I was sort of guilty. Nonchalantly guilty, really. It wasn't as if I hadn't noticed Roxas' immediate panic due to that abandonment bomb I'd dropped, but what was I supposed to do? Go to his concert? There was no way I was putting myself through that.

"But my dad said..."

"Your papa _ain't_ here, _son_." I gestured at the car with both hands. "I parked closer to your venue than mine. It's two blocks down. If you get lost, then it's your own damn fault. Look at me actually being the _good_ guy."

I'd assumed Roxas would be elated to escape being seen in public with me. Sora, Kairi and unfortunate as ever Riku were patiently waiting for him in front of their allotted venue, and Roxas officially had a riveting tale to tell about my striking lack of interpersonal communication skills and dirty fingernails. He was all set, but there he was _stalling_. I tugged out my phone with a furrowed brow. The minutes were ticking down, and if I was too late Xaldin wouldn't let me in through the back unless I begged. Roxas was making things more difficult than what was necessary.

"Listen," I said, dramatically shifting my weight onto a single foot with a faint hunch forward. Every muscular twitch was intended to mock him. "I'll wait for you if I get back first. No one's stranding you in Louisville."

That wasn't comforting enough, and he tilted his head with an open mouth. Roxas was formulating a million thoughts, purging them and then reconstructing ideas over and over again. The kid was building the Tower of Babel inside his think space. Those full lips pursed a final time before splitting again, faintly sticking together from cotton mouth, and pushed forward an unprecedented request.

"What if..." Roxas rolled the beaded flesh inside his bottom lip between his front teeth. "What if I wanted to go with you instead?"

As soon as the words drifted toward me I waved the smoke of cigarette out of my face, but it could've been misconstrued as me waving him off. "Say you're sorry, Roxas. No one likes a liar."

"I'm not being a _liar_ ," he snapped, and my smile slowly unfurled. "I'm _serious_ , Axel."

"He's serious now, is he?" I pivoted to make sure the car was locked one last time before turning to walk toward the damp sidewalk sitting on the end of a threadbare neighborhood. His much quicker steps padded alongside mine, and we exchanged a series of glances until he expectantly lifted a hand, annoyed. "Are you waiting for me to give you permission or something?"

"It's your gig." Roxas turned to walk backward in front of me. "Unless I'm gonna cramp your style or something because I'd _never_ want that..."

"I see where you're going with this." My arms defensively folded over my chest. "Do what you want, Roxas, but if I'm going to get there on time to see Slut Smashers' full set, then I need to start running like _now_."

"Slut Smashers?" He said the words with such distaste. "What kind of name is that? Do they like, _beat_ women for having sex? That's wrong, Axel. Even for _you_."

"Oh, Jesus Christ on a cross - _no_." My hand dragged along the back of my neck. Why did everyone think I hated women? "It's like - before they were the lineup they are now they had that name, and it's from a different era of straight edge ideology. Like, you _know_. The three Xs represent drugs, booze and sometimes promiscuity depending on the person, so they were really... into that..." Not wanting to get further into it because then I'd have to explain how some people broke edge, I rolled my eyes. "Don't overthink it. They're the best band in the scene, and they're never in the south anymore. This is a _big_ deal."

"Maybe they're the best to _you_." I blew a sleepy stream of smoke toward his face for that one, and he shoved my chest. "But _to me_ the best band ever is Frying Pan."

"Sounds _awesome_. I can't even begin to tell you..."

"They _rock_."

I actually hated him for existing on such an omnipresent plane of humiliation. "You're killing me, Roxas."

He narrowly gazed at me, clearly not understanding what he was doing. " _What_?"

" _You_..." As if I didn't need to elaborate on that.

Roxas readjusted his beanie and walked with a pronounced bob to his flatline hips. He raised an arm above his head only to clasp the elbow and stretch until something popped. This was followed by him discreetly flicking me off before dropping his hands at his sides and stepping out onto the sidewalk. Making my way to his height stunted side, I rubbed my cigarette's cherry into the adjacent chain fence and quirked the side of my mouth upward. Roxas was absorbing the glimmering backdrop of a downtown that was actually farther away than it seemed.

"You're as big of a jerk as ever," Roxas murmured.

"I could say the same for you. But _instead_ I'm going to be the adult here and tell you to stop starry eying it so we can get a move on. This city is filthy. You're loving it for the wrong reasons right now."

I shoved my phone into my back pocket and wordlessly broke into a slow sprint before he could snap back with something profound. Our surroundings were comprised of fast food establishments that hadn't seen a facelift since the mid-90s and the black sludge that streaks sidewalks after rain. Motor oil and the murmurs of people seated on their rotted through back porches whipped past us, and I didn't cut Roxas a glance during the exertion. Roxas was as athletic as they came, and I didn't want him to see how winded and out of shape I'd managed to become over the past couple of years. Going to shows was about the extent of my physical recreation, and that was counteracted by Stromboli and cheap beer.

"You're breathing awfully hard, Vasquez." Roxas was clear lunged long past the one mile point. "What _happened_?"

"I do what I want with my body."

We stopped at a crosswalk and Roxas continued jogging in place. "Seems to be going well for you."

Bulldog's was tucked away in what had once been a shopping center. No longer revealing a trace of its humble beginnings, the venue had taken on an identity of its own as a modest structure in the concrete backwoods. Outside stood a cluster of familiar faces with filters pinched between thumbs and forefingers, and they were the kind of kids who had _the_ _walk_. Almost identical to Roxas', it was he kind of universal walk the men in my circle displayed only when they'd reached a level of true impenetrable cockiness. One hip rose with the subtlest turn forward and then was followed by this sudden collapse downward that epitomized confidence, and it took on a subtle yet noticeable canter when attached to a quick stride. It was something that made women and men alike pause to watch.

Roxas was taking in the sight of people who were identical to me in style when I caught his elbow and dragged him around the corner of the building before anyone could see us. "We're not getting in that way."

"But it's the front door."

"You really are an Honors student." I slammed my palm against the tope metal door positioned beside a dumpster and a stack of chairs no one had bothered to touch since I'd started going to shows.

We didn't have to wait long. Xaldin wrenched open the heavy door in his gorilla glory and gave me a critical stare I returned with a shit eating grin meant to appeal to his sensitivities. His gaze didn't linger on me long. Xaldin's eyes squinted in what seemed to be faint disgust as soon as he saw Roxas, but he dropped the lip curl and tightened his grip on the edge of the door. All at once I knew I should've given him a heads up.

"What is _that_?"

"Look," I started with an unspoken apology, "there wasn't anything I could do. I had to bring him along or miss out on the show. Have some mercy."

"I have one condition, Axel. What's the one condition?"

My stare drifted to the side. "Friends out front."

"And what's with you right now."

I snapped my head forward. "I'm not breaking any of your rules because he's _not_ my friend. That means you have to let the both of us in."

"You're a piece of shit," Xaldin interrupted me, not meaning a word of it as he stepped to the side. "Get inside before someone sees. What's your name, Not My Friend?"

Roxas' eyes were globes. It wasn't news big men scared the shit out of him, which was why I swung my arm around his shoulders and tauntingly grasped onto Roxas' chin, squishing his cheeks while redirecting his face toward mine. "And this here is Roxas Woods. He bounced out on a totally _sweet_ Frying Pan concert to come hang with us."

Xaldin sucked in his cheeks, trying not to laugh. "Are you _sure_ you didn't wanna go, Axel?"

I nearly crawled across the ceiling. "I'm not about that life."

Roxas pushed my hand off his face only to trail behind me as I drifted from behind the bar and on into the minuscule space where people were crowding the slick cement floor. That same floor had beat me harder than clenched fists, but I returned like a battered housewife because it was all I knew. My existence was separated into phases, but this one had lasted the longest. Maybe it'd caught me at the right age, but when I thought about my adult life past high school, there was always still _this_. This being that quiet anger that created unity among the familiar naked arms hanging loosely at the sides of torsos, flexing in nervous anticipation because inevitably they would _move_.

"Marluxia, Marluxia -" I tauntingly pushed the ' _loosh_ ' of his name out into the open, causing the powder pink haired man to cast me a look of faux-disgust. "Why the face, brother? It's gonna be _good_."

Marluxia Pearson was from Philadelphia and only pretended he liked Louisville. Known for voicing opinions stripped straight from the books of the collective trending intellect, if Marluxia could drop a contemporary author's name as a way to either give his argument more authority or finagle a lay from the 'fringe bang, sundress' archetype, then you bet your ass it happened. Most of what he tried to feed us was convoluted trash we only feigned interest in because we feared being labelled as 'ignorant,' but I didn't have it in me to call him out every time he started spitting straight shit. Mainly because he _believed_ everything he said. I wasn't exactly a soul crusher so much as I was short fused with select individuals.

He shoved his fingers through greasy hair as if asked to pose for a nonexistent camera. Marluxia was poised with flesh colored stubble and hair slicked back into a new age pompadour with buzzed-to-downy sides. Had that haircut not happened, then he wouldn't have made it a day in our subculture with the pastel dye job. Though, other than that, he was socially acceptable with sharp angles that exuded more masculinity than I'd ever manage. Between his horticulture major and organic spinach salads were bloody noses and more than likely dead bodies. Marluxia was the scariest vegan I'd ever met, and I was lucky he tolerated me even though I was a total infant.

"It'll be good if Larxene's playing."

"Larxene," I inhaled through clenched teeth. "She's..."

"She's impeccable."

I hooked two fingers into one of my tunnels. "An impeccable bitch, maybe."

"Interesting coming from the boy who lost his virginity to her."

Roxas visibly perked at the word 'virginity,' and I glanced around to make sure no one had overheard before shoving Marluxia. " _Shut up_. That was illegal. She'll really never give it up to you if she found out you ran your mouth."

"She wouldn't give a shit." His shoulders hunched. "You don't know her like I do."

"The unrequited feelings are devastating." I couldn't have been dryer. "Little did you know I'm aching from the love loss right now as we stand here anticipating Larxene's appearance on God's very own petulant earth. Remind me to pick a couple pomegranate seeds and sway the goddess into my underworld abode the next time we're together."

Marluxia ignored that. "You're lucky you missed the two opening bands. They were _miserable_."

Crossing my arms over my chest, Slut Smashers' technical crew stepped on stage to connect wires and tune instruments. I hadn't been around when they used to hook up their own equipment, but it didn't seem that long ago to most of the people I knew. Marluxia himself claimed he'd seen them as local openers when he was younger than me. He'd been around, flitting from city to city, since he was maybe fifteen, and it was a wonder he'd finally managed to settle down long enough to finish a high school degree let alone an undergraduate degree. About to turn twenty-two, he was an omnipresent infrastructure of the differentiating hardcore scenes with a kind of avant-garde respectability. There weren't many people who could blend in the way he managed to, but there was a good reason for this.

Beef between individual cities aside, the trending hierarchy within the hardcore sphere was and is very real. It could take a while for certain 'in vogue' subgenres to trickle into popularity, which caused a clash of interests. Like anything else, it begins in the bigger cities. Think Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City; only to spread out as intertwining strains that sometimes adapt better in different areas. Punk hardcore had recently resurfaced in Indianapolis, but no one in Louisville was biting even though it was sourced from New York City and Chicago. The preoccupation in Louisville was still hinged on the dissolve of straight edge and whether or not melodic was worth anyone's time. For most, this was archaic, but Indianapolis was brimming with trend pacifists, and we were the assholes consistently behind on the Times. Louisville's hardcore scene was confidently full of shit. To be fair, the problem with this wasn't so much that it was a reality, but more so how rare it was to find someone willing to own up to its formula.

"Am I going to get hurt?" Roxas finally spoke up and Marluxia flashed him a stare of recognition, but he didn't say anything. Already I could see he wasn't viewing Roxas as anything worth his time. Snap judgements were the epicenter of our crew. Roxas wasn't wearing ball shorts and a muscle tee or hoodie of some ancient, no longer relevant band that hadn't even made it past Cincinnati but was still considered _legendary_.

"Are you scared?" That made Marluxia smile and finally look away. "Looking a little scared, Roxas."

"I'm not scared. I'm apprehensive."

"Apprehensive is just a fancy word for scared."

The frontman of Slut Smashers was iconic. Not much older than me, but still terrifying, Saix Roswell was a testimony to the manipulation human beings are capable of. He stood tall and built with a black, lengthy undercut swept back and a face strategically maimed with an X directly across the bridge of his nose. This maiming was the result of a straight edge gang encounter after Saix had stumbled onto a show just inebriated enough to make an ass out of himself. The run in with the 'suburban terrorists' had invoked the desire to become the antithesis of his assailants, so Saix made a point to take over Slut Smashers himself after meeting the high profile band in LA. He was the reason they were no longer preaching the doctrine, but he'd kept the original band name out of spite, and as an unapologetic 'fuck you' to anyone who'd once been enamored with the old message.

Without need for introduction, Larxene appeared on stage while in mid-tightening of her ponytail, drumsticks in mouth as she sat down solely to rain hell along her set. A smoggy haze drifted across the stage, more than likely due to the horrible lighting and cramped interior, but my adrenaline was already beginning to surge and create waves inside my ear canals. To an outsider, the idea of hardcore, particularly in Louisville, had a knack for bleeding unhealthy undertones, and maybe secondhand embarrassment. It was an excuse to hate together and interlace as a community of underdogs, but without much resolve other than anger fueled venting. That's what made it so cathartic, though. This was all I had to do to feel some kind of relief through all the oppressive bullshit I was force fed, like a goose up for foie gras.

"Everyone's so quiet," Roxas murmured.

"And you should be quiet, too."

Xigbar, followed by Zexion, appeared afterward. The two were polar opposites in terms of story and appearance. Xigbar was an extension of old thrash metal circa the early 90s and approximately ten years my senior while Zexion had been prompted to join Slut Smashers when the original bass player dipped out along with the frontman. Both were extensions of the overall local music scene that thrived on and off without a congruent note. The only original members were Xigbar and Larxene, but that'd been enough to make a hard percentage of the original fan base apostatize. In a way, they'd been smart enough to capitalize on Saix's overthrow. I'm not sure if I'd done anything differently, but that's my incredibly anti straight-edge beliefs formulating a bias.

I spotted the tip of a black, weathered rivet authentic cut from the side of the stage and Saix strode out in a mocking Boston hardcore sweatshirt from the band Have Heart. He rolled his shoulders, and with his free hand, swept back grimy black tresses that ended up sitting perfectly backward. They'd played this set so many times there was no need for onstage communication, and Xigbar wordlessly began producing the manic crescendo that built with Larxene's accompanying heartbeat. It was anxiety inducing, and I noticed Roxas running his hands along his forearms while watching Saix with a vacant stare. He wasn't impressed, and I didn't get _why_.

Saix flashed the crowd a short look over with his typical gaze of disenchantment before raising his hand like Moses preparing to part the sea. " _Move_."

It's a widely accepted fact people need something to believe in, be it their selves, or something far more structured. This was my religion. With that one word the crowd had erupted into a mass of moving humans, and they were my congregation. Every spin kick and grab for the microphone added to the depletion of oxygen in the small room with its drippy ceiling and screaming kids. We were a group of people brought together by the mutual understanding of living through misunderstanding, and conversations were only so impactful. Sometimes thought could only be conveyed through exertion of muscle and expulsion of blood. It was the same groundwork as war, and the fight was for our lives in a society that didn't see us as anything more than a social security number.

Roxas had inched his way toward the wall, and when I looked over my shoulder during the second song I was able to watch as Marluxia's foot made direct contact with Roxas' unsuspecting nose. It was only the second song, but when Roxas' head slammed back against the cinder block wall and blood gushed from his face like a hot shower I decided that, if I ever wanted to see daylight again, I was going to have to make sure Roxas' nose hadn't been shoved into his cerebellum. There was no way I could pass that off as a Frying Pan incident. Could you imagine? Roxas got so fucking wild he let someone beat the shit out of him in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. _He bathed in the blood of the lamb, David. Amen._

I shoved through the crowd, purposefully knocking down one of the kids making an ass out of himself by shoving him toward cement with a single arm before reaching Roxas, who was letting blood rain through the sieve of his fingers. Brain chunks weren't collecting in his palms, so I figured he'd survive even if his nose was potentially broken. This was probably the first time in his life he'd ever been physically injured, which was why I reluctantly tried being nicer than usual.

"Are you okay?" I screamed the words over the blaring rifts, trying not to make it obvious I wanted to be on the floor and not in the corner.

Roxas shook his head in shock, and I groaned before taking ahold of his elbow and stalking toward the bathroom inspired by Trainspotting. As Roxas tried washing the blood off his hands in the stained sink, I reached for brown paper towels that reluctantly ripped free from their rusted dispenser. I pressed the bundle against his nose from behind, and he took over with damp hands. At the same time, he glanced up at the cracked mirror and fleetingly took in our reflections. He was suddenly meek and so much smaller while I was a panting mess of a sweaty bull. It was hard to believe we were basically the same age.

"I think my nose is broken."

"Don't be a pussy," I muttered, taking his hand and pressing the towels back against his nose when blood dripped over the dip of his Cupid's bow. "I'm going back out there."

"I'm going to stay in here."

"It's probably safer out there than in here."

He didn't get an explanation before I vanished from the bathroom and shoved my way to the front of the knee high stage, appreciating the sound of flesh smacking hard against bruising surfaces. The moment I hit front and center, Saix offered the microphone to the crowd, and I clasped my hands onto it with him holding tight, both our fingers slippery from the collection of briny sweat. Fleetingly, we made eye contact and he was all aquamarine and a drippiness that fell on me with every faint tremble. His eyes were dilated, and I wondered what he'd taken before stepping out in front of us. Within seconds of noting that we were holding a stare, I was piled on. Four other hands covered mine and yanked down with a vigorous tug. Saix humored his patrons before clenching the microphone with both hands and going into the kind of break down that rippled through bone marrow.

Saix and I had seen one another on and off for two years due to after show confrontations, but a friendship hadn't developed beyond lighting each other's cigarettes and critiquing people who passed us. Traveling made staying connected hard unless you were on tour as tech crew.

Slut Smashers finished the set with a euphoric sigh of relief, and I was sweat drenched and running on after show adrenaline that was giving me the shakes. Cool air brushed against the fabric clinging to my skin, and my mind habitually drifted toward pizza and conversation with my friends, but then I remembered I was responsible for someone against my will. An injured someone at that. Roxas was still in the bathroom.

I stumbled into the crowded urinary tract to see Slut Smashers' Xigbar leaned against the shit stained wall in full conversation with Roxas who was listening with an intensity I'd only seen when he was on a pew. Whatever Xigbar was saying had to be ringing some bells because he wasn't flinching or side eyeing the wall in disdain.

"You can't come up in here looking like Macaulay Culkin's fetus in fetu. Not to impress people, but to keep your ass from getting mauled by lions. You're a target. You're the poster child for something worthy of a shoe to the face. The filth always finds the bleached countertop, and you're Mr. Clean, my friend."

"Roxas," I called out. "I'm taking you home."

"Axel," Xigbar said with a smarmy smile, almost as if it were a question. "Are you going to eat with us? Saix owes you one."

The last time I'd checked we weren't on a first name basis. I'd hung out with him possibly twice before, and the entire time that'd been going on I'd been side-by-side with Saix. We weren't even on a descriptive basis because if you walked into a show and tried to describe someone by their ball shorts and stretched ears, then that was the entire group. Maybe it was the red hair.

"Roxas needs to get home." I gripped Roxas' bicep and tugged him over. "His parents are neo-Nazi scum."

"It's the weekend, kiddos." Xigbar wasn't biting my refusal. The peer pressure was on. "What kind of high schoolers are you if you're heading home _right_ after a show?"

Knowing this entirely depended on Roxas' testicular prowess, I leaned over his shoulder and expectantly quirked an eyebrow while giving him eye contact. His lips parted as he critically furrowed his brow, but he glanced back toward Xigbar, knowing this was something that could make or break many things. There was a heap of contemplation on his shoulders, and I could've sworn I felt him physically crumple beneath me when his mind was all at once made up. His skin paled, but I soothingly patted his shoulder.

"Maybe if it's only for like an hour."

"There we go, Roxas." I flashed Xigbar a short-lived grin. "Where's Saix?"

Saix was out front, sucking in the night air and surrounded by the usual ass kissers. Women in particular adored him even though he infamously wouldn't let one bite down hard enough to stay for more than a night, which I'd never understood. There were a couple of girls he'd wrangled with asses I could've fried an egg on, but to each his own. Roxas and I stepped out front with Xigbar in tow.. There was no interrupting Saix, which was why I lazily lit up a cigarette and puffed in the acrid smoke that hit my raw throat, waiting for my turn. I always looked at smoking after a show as the equivalent to smoking after sex. There was something almost necessary, but we were also a group of teenagers and early twenty-year-olds desperate to look nonchalantly cool, so I tried not to put much merit on my sex comparison. Half of the people I talked to only _claimed_ to have actually had sex. It was that benchmark age of 'who even knew?'

"How often do you do this?"

"Every week if I have the money to hitch a ride with someone." Out of habit, I offered him a cigarette only to realize what I was doing and scowl. "What do you think about it?"

"It's ridiculous."

"Maybe that's true." My eyes cut to Saix once more who was pushing a blonde girl's loose strands behind her ear, and I rolled my eyes to the side the second she laughed. "But did you like it?"

He thoughtfully stared ahead, eyes illuminated by the red overcast caused by a nearby neon light. There was no accompanying yes or no, which was probably good because all at once Xaldin pushed my head forward and I nearly ate my cigarette. His foreboding presence caused Saix to notice there were people by the front door, and I inhaled through clenched teeth as my nerves drove stakes through my critical thinking skills. Saix raised a hand to dismissively excuse himself from those he'd been talking to. This was what most people called a 'friend crush.' I wanted him to be my friend to the point that my body attempted to perceive the anxiousness as wanting him to dry hump me. If Roxas had noticed, then he wasn't picking on me for it.

"For some reason I thought you'd left." Saix's voice was throaty yet simultaneously saturated in agave nectar, and I wasn't sure if the chills were from the air or him speaking. "You're coming to Spinelli's right?"

"Not for long." Which was true. I wasn't going to drag Roxas through the gutter and risk being grounded for all of fall break. "But we're going there."

"Did you have to park far?" He tugged out a cigarette, and it was only second nature for me to step up with the readily lit Bic and cover the side of the flame.

"Only very." I exchanged looks with Roxas who cut me a look of accusation that I smiled at. "Saix, meet Roxas. He's my ward for the night."

"Is _that_ why you're going home early?"

I pocketed my lighter and ran my fingers through red hair that was finally starting to dry. "Perceptive."

"Are you going to be around later this week? We're here for a while to take a couple month break before riding to New York." Saix pushed back his hair, which I'd noticed was a habit. "I'm bunking with _Marluxia._ " The knowing look we exchanged was followed by a short laugh, but he continued. "Ride with us. We're about to leave."

"Ah - _mn_." This was when my proper judgement took hold. "No can do. Gotta make sure we can leave as soon as we're done eating, and uh... No offense, but I know how you get when you're drunk. I don't trust you to get me back to my car in a couple hours."

Saix's smile was telltale when he glanced to the side, and there was something wicked about it. Too bad I understood exactly what the implication was. "You do know, don't you?"

That made me tense because Roxas was _right there_ , and I suddenly grabbed the blond's arm and stepped backward, waving my cigarette. "We've gotta walk, so we'll catch up with you guys."

Roxas didn't say anything as I turned my shoulder, and he continued to not say anything throughout the duration of our run back to the car, which was more of a tired jog. His wheels were too busy turning, and my face was hot with inexplicable shame. The idea of digging skin out of the hollows my cheeks so that they'd stop burning seemed purgative, and I wanted to roll out in front of the passing semis.

"It's just pizza and then we'll be out of here," I reassured Roxas while unlocking the car.

"It's fine. I'm hungry." Roxas looked at me over the top of the car. "You seem like you really want to catch up with Saix."

"Holy shit. _Shut up_." That shot out quicker than I could stop it, and Roxas' injured expression forced me to retract what I'd said. "I mean, yeah. I guess. Thanks for not fighting this. Appreciate it."

When I went to grab the car door's handle my palms slipped, slick with sweat.

The main stretch of what was our drive twisted through a neighborhood that was synonymous with lawyer, doctor and manageable student debt, but mostly _crisp_. Crisp because it was autumn and the air was like biting into an apple freshly dropped from a branch, but also because we were in an area where life felt entirely freeing. This was the Highlands, a completely inaccessible area to people without money, but my friends and I still drifted in and out of Bardstown Road for hookah bars, thrift stores and a post-hangover Smokehouse from Quills. It was impossible to get a fake ID for half the bars along the stretch, but Larxene's mom lived directly off the stretch so more than once I'd found myself capable of getting just drunk enough to enjoy the street with everyone else.

Spinelli's was a local chain pizzeria that was open until the early AM. The green vinyl of every booth was torn, the walls covered in graffiti inspired art and the pizza only so inspiring, but the place was perfect for post-show buzzes. When we arrived, Slut Smashers was already gathered around a table, discussing southern nuances and why, of all the places they went, somehow the south was their favorite.

"It's the gravy," Xigbar stated, matter-of-fact.

As soon as they spotted us there was a sequence of waves and acknowledgement. I took my seat in a booth beside Saix who offered to buy me a beer, but I waved him off. Roxas was silent, but he was taking everything in, weighing the worth of each person in the room and noting how they interacted with one another. He'd always done this. As a child he'd been impossibly quiet, and it was why I'd been drawn to him. Roxas had been a challenge long before he was my best friend, and now he was a challenge again, but I doubted this would become cyclic.

"What do you want?" I asked Roxas.

He was biting into a slice of cheese pizza when I asked, and I must've worded it wrong because he was immediately offended. I cleared my throat, ignoring Saix's hand on my lower back as I leaned forward. The frontman was too busy discussing a tattoo parlor in New York City he liked to pay attention to the deep talk I was eliciting. "I mean, what do you want out of life? What're your goals after high school."

Roxas chewed. "Pre-med or ministry."

"That..." I paused. "...that sounds fucking awful."

"Why?" He dryly asked, clearly humoring me.

"Because it's not what you _want_ to do."

"And pray tell how you know about my wants."

I leaned back against Saix's hand who was dragging his thumb along my bare skin. "Your daddy's deciding it for you, isn't he? That's awesome. Go to medical school because mommy and daddy are gonna foot the bill. Do what seems right because you've been told all your life that's the ultimate in God's calling and God forbid you _not_ meet the highest standard your parents could set for you. That sounds exhilarating. Absolutely inspiring."

"The University of Kentucky is a good school. I make good grades, and it's what I want. _Don't_..." Roxas glared at me as he grabbed a piece of my supreme pizza. "...act like you know who I am."

"What do you love?" I raised a hand before he could answer. "And don't you dare say Jesus."

He gave this some thought and picked the green peppers off his pizza, giving them to me because he knew I liked them. "I really love music."

"And I'd punch you for saying that if you weren't good at it. You have talent." I made a guitar picking gesture. "That get-fiddle you play is pretty nice, and then you drum too, right? Or did you stop doing that..."

"I still drum."

"Then _why_ don't you do something with music?"

"Because," Roxas snapped. " _Because_ the world isn't black and white, and the world isn't hinged on whatever bullshit dimension you've inserted yourself into. Dreams are dreams, and that's fine if you've got the resources to pursue them. I'm so glad you get to go to New York City because you're not afraid of student debt or what it means to have no one with zero life skills outside of the reputation you've built in a minuscule, completely irrelevant community in the middle of nowhere. That is so cool, Axel. But I'm not like you. A majority of the world is _not_ like you."

"And what do you know about life or the world?"

Roxas dropped his pizza. "Maybe not that much, but I do know you know _nothing_ about my world, and I know you've never had to pay a bill in your life, so what do _you_ know?"

"I know that I hate it enough here to do anything I can to get out."

"Why don't you just move _here_?" Roxas and I were leaned forward over the table, suddenly too invested in each other. "This is awesome. You have friends and random people who nod in your direction when you pass by, people in bands who think you're everything, a network in a city with tons of colleges. What more do you _want_?"

"You _really_ don't understand."

"The same way you don't understand _me_."

We ended the conversation there. Saix had retracted his hand when he felt me tense up from the conversation, thinking it was because he wouldn't stop touching me. I finished my pizza, inserted a couple comments into Saix's conversation and then checked my phone. It was time to leave after the shortest hour of my life, and I motioned for Roxas that we needed to take our pizza and go. Saix shot me a disappointed look when I announced we were leaving and then nodded toward the bathroom.

"I've gotta tell you something."

Roxas was given the go ahead to warm up the car, and I followed Saix toward the other end of the galley restaurant and through the bathroom door. There was the distinct sound of the lock turning over, and before I could contemplate a response, Saix's fingers were in my hair and his mouth crushed against mine. The words 'just friends' pulsated through my mind over and over again even as I split my lips and stroked my tongue along his. His breathing shifted, mine followed, and I finally reached up for the side of his head and a shoulder I held onto for dear life.

The same wave of sickness from the parking lot interrupted the small pops and underlying urgency. We'd done this before. We'd done more than this before, but the last time we'd openly agreed it needed to stop. Neither of us were interested in being in some kind of 'out' relationship, and half the time I didn't even know how much I liked the opposite sex. Sometimes the urge was just there, but afterward a wicked knot in my stomach left me shameful and on the brink of wanting to hang myself for days afterward. The only problem was, no matter how we disregarded one another, there was still an impossible pull that left me enthusiastically returning whatever affection he gave me. In the moment, hating myself for a week afterward until I could suppress the memory didn't matter.

"Is this what you wanted to tell me?"

It always occurred to me that he was about two inches shorter than me when we kissed, but I knew if I mentioned it he'd break the sink on my face. He was stockier, definitely stronger, but I didn't have time to overthink Saix right then. Roxas was waiting in the car.

"Better go," I murmured when he tried to make nice with my neck. There was a faint pause on my part when he started to roll his lips against my pulse, and had it been anyone else in my car, then I would've shuddered and told them it was fine, but that wasn't the case. "Better go _now_."

He pulled back and cleared his throat. "Do you like that kid?"

"He's whatever."

Saix wasn't convinced, which I rolled my eyes at as I unlocked the door and pushed out into the dining room. We didn't say anything else afterward, simply to keep things from seeming too obvious, and as I waved goodbye to the rest of the table, my fingers reached up to dry the saliva from beneath my chin.

The scent of beer on my skin didn't wear off throughout the duration of the drive home. Roxas hadn't asked questions when I plopped down into the driver's seat, and I didn't give him much of a reason to. We listened to the radio, pushing through the country stations, outdated pop and classic rock until we finally connected my iPod and put it on shuffle. None of us were very committed to anything except the need for background noise.

" _So_ \- did you like it?"

"Like what?" He asked, his head pressed against the window. He was trying to doze.

"Slut Smashers, my friends, the whole scene..."

"It's ridiculous."

That made me smile. "It is."

When we crawled into my driveway it was too late for him to come home. Nearly one in the morning, I wasn't surprised to see my mother curled up on the couch with the flickering light of the television cascading across her as soon as we walked in. She stirred, pushed back her red hair that was no longer in a tight bun and rubbed the side of her face before checking the phone. We both received a sleepy stare of disapproval.

"Roxas, I called your parents. They think you're asleep right now."

"You lifesaver, you." I grinned at her, but she pointed at me as if in warning before slowly getting to her feet and heading into the bedroom down the hallway.

Roxas and I made a beeline for the bedroom, and I began tugging junk off the mattress so that he'd have somewhere to sleep. The skepticism on his face was clear when I patted the mattress and began tugging off my shirt to change. Before he could make a sick implication, I tossed a pair of ball shorts at his face.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm not going to molest you."

He slowly began to change, still staring at the bed. "I didn't say that."

"Then stop giving me that criminal look." I tugged on a pair of sweats with a small jump. "Unless, of course, your masculinity is too fragile to sleep beside me. The couch is all yours then."

Roxas wasn't biting the bait, and he flopped down on the bed. "Your pillows smell like a fart."

"And children are abortions who eat, but you don't hear me complaining."

That offended him, and he rolled over, his back facing me as I climbed into the bed. There was a long pause, just the sound of electricity pulsating through the walls and the occasional click of the heater. I swallowed, thinking about Saix and how it'd felt to kiss him again and how revolting I was for not telling him no. If anyone found out, then I'd be dead meat to most of my friends, and I wasn't sure how he slept at night.

"Hey, Axel?" Roxas murmured.

I cleared my throat. " _Mn_?"

"I had fun."

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone should thank Claire for being a huge supporting pillar throughout the decision to re-up this story. I've been fighting with it for almost two years now, and I don't know where I'd be without her encouragement.


End file.
